Grow Your Own Tea

  Did you know?  You can grow your own tea plant! It takes about 3 years for a bush to mature for picking, but in the meantime you have a nice potted plant to enjoy with anticipation. The tea bush has fragrant flowers in the fall and is a relative of the camellia (Camellia Sinensis). You can get seeds or seedlings from your local nursery or online.

All types of tea, black, white, green, oolong come from the same tea plant, yet they all taste and appear to be different. The appearance depends on the processing and oxidizing after harvesting the leaves.

FOR BLACK TEA,
the tea leaves are spread out and left to wither, partially drying them. They are then rolled so they can dry further. The tea leaves are spread out again in cool, damp atmosphere and oxidation continues. The tea leaves are originally green, but as they oxidize, oxygen reacts with cells to turn them a copper color. A lot like the tree leaves turning in the fall. As the leaves are dried with hot air, the color darkens to brown or black. Then they are sorted by size and grade.

GREEN TEA,
comes from exactly the same plant. The steps are the same for processing, but the leaves are steamed after partially drying. This stops the oxidation process in its tracks. It causes the tea leaf to stay green. The process then continues.

WHITE TEA AND OOLONG TEA
Oolong tea is between black and green tea. The tea leaves are only partially oxidized. The never reach the same stage as black tea.
WHITE TEA, was reserved for Chinese nobility and has been exported only for a few years. It is picked early, when the buds have not fully opened, only two days out of the year.

HERBAL TEA is a generic name applied to most dried fruits or herbs infused with hot water to make a refreshing drink. Most of these have no tea in them.

Chai tea, for example, is black tea brewed with spices. Usually cinnamon, cloves, ginger and pepper, adding sweetener and milk.

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